Posted
by
kdawson
on Saturday June 16, 2007 @09:49PM
from the another-stick-in-the-eye dept.

christian.einfeldt writes "The Venezuelan Government announced the roll-out of four different models of Linux-powered consumer computers, three desktop models and one notebook. Branded 'Bolivarian Computers,' they will be will be produced by a joint venture of the Venezuelan Ministry of Light Industry and Commerce and a Chinese company named Lang Chao. The goal of the project is to jump-start a domestic IT industry and become an IT exporter to the rest of Latin America. At the ceremony introducing the program, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez claimed that the Bolivarian Computers cost 40% less than other commercially available models and come with a 3-year warranty."

It's sad how Chavez will be remembered around the world for the one thing he's been consistently right about, rather than an honest critical assessment of his achievements and methods. Hell, even Saddam Hussein, who used to be reviled throughout the Arab world, managed to resuscitate his historical legacy a bit through his opposition to Bush. Apparently if you oppose the biggest threat to peace and democracy in the world loudly enough, everyone forgets you're a slightly smaller threat yourself.

You reading comprehension is severely deficient - I'm pretty sure you just repeated the parent's point. That being said, he's probably not all that bad. The US government just hates him because he's acting in Venezuela's interests, at the expense of foreign (US) interests.

The TV station wasn't closed, it merely lost its license to broadcast over the air. This means that it can now only be viewed using cable.

You seem confused - "unusual circumstances" doesn't really explain anything, and the constitution wasn't "tampered", Chavez declared a referendum, and 92% of voters wanted a new constitution. Hard to see what's wrong with that.

After my first comment in this thread, I did some research, and found this [google.ca] documentary about the failed Venezuelan coup in 2002. After watching that, I can't really blame Chavez for not renewing the license of a private TV station, they seem to lie through their teeth. Also, Chavez is so tolerant of opposition that after regaining power following the 2002 coup, he didn't go around and exile or imprison everybody involved. Some have most probably been charged for their actions, but some prominent leaders from the coup government are still supposedly part of public life in Venezuela.

* You mean like using a power that every other president in Venezuela has used?
* You mean where "decree" is in an incredibly limited scope, a fact rarely reported by the media?
* You mean where any act he legislates, no matter the method, can be rescinded by the popular vote?
* You mean where normal laws take 10% of the population to rescind, decree laws take only 5%?
* You mean where the legislature can rescind or modify said decrees -- quite unlike the US "Fast Track" legislation?"\

Nah, let's demonize Chavez and distort the facts!

shutting down opposition TV stations

* You mean TV stations that helped organize a bloody coup against him?
* You mean TV stations that even most of their backers admit broke the law?

It's high, but it's dropping, not rising. Despite the best efforts of the opposition to destroy the economy.

But nah, let's demonize Chavez!

or doubling the murder rate?

* With 11,000 murders in 2003 and a population of 26.2 million, that's 42 per 100,000 [globalsecurity.org], compared to their US-loving neighbor Colombia's 63-84 per 100k and Washington DC's ~50 per 100k.

Bad numbers, and certainly worse than it was before. But, sadly, that's Latin America for you.

They are certainly achievements. But if I were him, I would rather be remembered as a Bush basher than the rest.

I'll note what you *didn't* mention, like the percentage of those without healthcare, or the illiteracy rate. Or like having to do this stuff with an opposition that wants to wreck the economy and once overthrew him in a coup, and the US who would like to do both of those as well.

* You mean where any act he legislates, no matter the method, can be rescinded by the popular vote?
* You mean where normal laws take 10% of the population to rescind, decree laws take only 5%?

IF I remember it takes 10 or 5 percent SIGNATURES to start a vote to remove said law. Now that means valid signatures and oddly enough guess who gets to decide what valid signatures are (of course enough are invalid to fall below the threshold? There has already been one case recently where it took a lawsuit to have signatures put back on. Now the government in the interest of public safety and to stop abuse has made all the signers (their names, etc.) public.

* You mean like using a power that every other president in Venezuela has used?

Five times. During specific crises.

* You mean where "decree" is in an incredibly limited scope, a fact rarely reported by the media?

Limited? This is the broadest use of the decree power ever granted. "This law applies to eleven key sectors including the economy, the central bank, telecommunications, food security and energy security." Previous uses of this power focused narrowly on single subjects.

* You mean where any act he legislates, no matter the method, can be rescinded by the popular vote?
* You mean where normal laws take 10% of the population to rescind, decree laws take only 5%?

Those 5 and 10 percent numbers are for percentages of registered voters to request a referendum on that particular decree. Once that hurdle is passed, fifty percent is the target number. The killer, though, is the provision that 40% of registered voters must vote or the referendum is invalid. Venezuela has had the most ambitious voter registration campaign in the Americas the past several years. When looking at historical voting percentages, this means that repeal of any decree is highly unlikely.

* You mean where the legislature can rescind or modify said decrees -- quite unlike the US "Fast Track" legislation?"

What? Congress gets a yes/no vote on a treaty with no ability to make changes. Very narrow scope. I would not expect the Venezuelan legislature to modify anything. Something about one hundred percent Chavez supporters in the legislature makes that quite unlikely. Makes it even stranger that he would need decree powers in such a situation.

* You mean TV stations that helped organize a bloody coup against him?
* You mean TV stations that even most of their backers admit broke the law?

Helped organize? The worst accusations I have heard were more in the range of lent support to. Even that has been denied by the station personel. *shrug* I have no firsthand information, but every single media watch group in the world that I have come across has opposed this shutdown. I am more likely to put my faith in them, than the claims of Chavez and his government.

Same with the world's democracy watchgroups. Downgrading Venezuela's status under Chavez. Same with economic organizations. Downgrading Venezuela's status under Chavez. Same with human rights organizations. Downgrading Venezuela's status under Chavez.

But nah, let's demonize Chavez!

But nah, let's canonize Chavez!
There are postitive and negative numbers in abundance for pro and anti Chavez folk to argue from here to eternity. What do you think of his long term future? Right now record oil prices are keeping his head above water. If those ever slack off, his happy ride with the people is going to get rough.

and once overthrew him in a coup,

I wouldn't play up coups as being justification for his actions. People might start to remember that Chavez was a coup leader himself back in the nineties -- one considerably more bloody than the one he survived. I believe the only dead in this coup were anti Chavez protesters shot down in the streets a couple days before the coup attempt.

Those 5 and 10 percent numbers are for percentages of registered voters to request a referendum on that particular decree. Once that hurdle is passed, fifty percent is the target number. The killer, though, is the provision that 40% of registered voters must vote or the referendum is invalid. Venezuela has had the most ambitious voter registration campaign in the Americas the past several years. When looking at historical voting percentages, this means that repeal of any decree is highly unlikely.

Bad numbers, and certainly worse than it was before. But, sadly, that's Latin America for you.

That's some parts of Latin America for you. In Uruguay I think there are about 300 murders a year, I'm not sure if in all of Uruguay (3.5 million people) or just Montevideo (1.5 million people), that's 8.5/100K or worst case 20/100K. Not all of Latin America is Colombia, Mexico or Bolivia, you know...

But seriously, sometimes govenment direction can result in good stuff. Just like Brazil and energy selfsuficiancy. They say a problem, no oil, and the govenment of the day said OK, we will go ethynol. Ans now they do not have a relience onf foriegn oil.

Government direction can be a good thing. Government intervention will never be.

This project is doomed from the start — take the pink glasses off for a second, and imagine the US government trying anything like it. This very forum would've been all mad about it — and justifiably so.

For example, consider the expected quality of support. We all complain about the poor Indians, who can't properly troubleshoot Dell computer problems. That's with English being the official language in India.

Now imagine the Chinese supporting these "Bolivarian computers". In Spanish...

I understand you point but the way I read it the Chinese are in it for the technological and industrial part... the support will likely come from Venezuelans themselves, who are the other half of the "joint venture".

Although the image of a callcentre in Beijing helping users in Venezuela in spanish on how to install a TrueType font is interesting in it's own right:)

I'm an active FreeBSD contributor. In my over ten years of involvement with the project, I can't recall a single person from Venezuella.

Maybe, they are all in the Linux camp — preferring the Bolivarian GPL over the capitalist BSD or something. But somehow I doubt, there is enough Linux expertise in Venezuella to support an "IT industry", that could possibly supply the rest of Latin America with computers.

>This project is doomed from the start -- take the pink glasses off for a second

Actually, I'm surprised that you're surprised by this. Latin America is the next North America in terms of size, economy, and growth potential. It was only a matter of time before cheap, reliable PC's became part of the Latin American economy. Ever been on Battle.net (Wc3)? DOTA BRAZIL ONLY.

The only pink vision I have, is that someone like me would move down there, and do it myself. I guess I'm disappointed that Latin Am

This project is doomed from the start — take the pink glasses off for a second, and imagine the US government trying anything like it. This very forum would've been all mad about it — and justifiably so.

For example, consider the expected quality of support. We all complain about the poor Indians, who can't properly troubleshoot Dell computer problems. That's with English being the official language in India.

Now imagine the Chinese supporting these "Bolivarian computers". In Spanish...

Still it is a perfect example of how GNU+Linux will survive out side the US if not in it. RMS has even suggested that they MIGHT have to move the FSF overseas. We all have heard him say that the US government is just a tool for MS and he is not that far off.

Funny you should mention that, the last time I checked Brazil didn't solve its problems with ethanol alone, they also expanded onshore and offshore oil drilling a great deal. Of course, that doesn't fit the "story" everyone wants to tell.

Hum, lately I've seen much of that (no freedom) in the UK. The V for Vendetta movie seems creepingly more prophetic every day. US comes in a very close second place, but they don't need a cheap computer to distract the masses, just Superbowl will do for the time being, with the occasional Iraq bombings on CNN.

Government computers probably come with government spyware (not the annoying kind the rest of the world deals with). When someone discovers it they won't be able to say anything through the government-owned media and will be thrown out of their job and be on government blacklists and be unable to obtain government food rations...

I wonder if they will follow the GPL when they introduce nastiness into the kernel?

Following your logic - which is indeed a possibility - isn't it OK to assume that the USA will do the same with software made by US corporations and sold to Venezuela? And in that light, and not taking into account the liking or disliking of the respective governments, isn't it a matter of national security to stop using US made software in government computers?

I'm mentioning this because I think this is the first concern they have, having their own brand of spyware can be a nice after effect. The second

Following your logic - which is indeed a possibility - isn't it OK to assume that the USA will do the same with software made by US corporations and sold to Venezuela? And in that light, and not taking into account the liking or disliking of the respective governments, isn't it a matter of national security to stop using US made software in government computers?

To be honest, I've always wondered the same thing. Not so much recently, because I don't think the CIA and the NSA have the influence in big busine

While it is not difficult to put spyware in the Linux kernel it is also very easy to replace or recompile that kernel from source unlike other proprietary software.

Any government contemplating putting spyware in the Linux kernel would have to be very stupid because to be found out and they will, would effectively result in a ban on all their computer exports, not to mention the embarrassment. I would not be surprised if Microsoft was one of the first companies to provide support to the GPL to actually ac

Another "good" thing he is doing. 53 million lightbulbs have been replaced to fluorescent versions. An agreement with Vietnam was reached to start manufacturing the philips lightbulbs here. Vehicles will be able to run on natural gas soon, and the conversion will be free to users. They are testing solar panel use.

Because not everyone wants to live under what many consider to be a borderline dictatorship?

It's not as if you're allowed to oppose the guy if you're Venezuelan w/o repercussions. At least in North America and the EU, speaking out against political figures and government is not only legal, but gets you cred among ideologically like-minded people. You can still go to work the next day confident that you won't lose your job by government mandate. You can kick back in your house confident that someone wo

The thing about personal freedom is life, liberty and the opportunity to peruse profit. Certainly, for what I have seen, the later is the missing part of the equation in south america, while the other two items are increasingly missing in a large part of north america. The ability to travel freely, to read what one wants to read, to engage in legal acts without being harassed are quickly falling to a populous that is more fearful of microrisk than concerned about macroliberties.

OTOH, as I have seen time and time again, acess to technology increases ones ability to persue profit, i.e. happiness. The ability to use machines, and thus improve personal productivity, is the greatest asset one can have. The problem is that in many parts of the wold capital to acquire such technolgy is limit. There are no credit cards, or banks loans, or anything. Therefore anything that can be done to reduce the costs of technology to the point that an individual can purchase said technology from existing liquid assets means that the technolgy will not be just a toy for the rich, but a mover for the masses.

And this is the reform that many in south america are trying to make. Many countries in south america are at the place where the US is moving toward. Money concentrated at the few, gated communities, aggressive police presence, inadequate medical service. It may be that 10% of the people in Venezuela controls 50% of the capital,which and 40% live in poverty. Just like in the US, if you can train a person to catch fish, and not just give him a fish, and also make the fishing pole affordable, then we can begin to help people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps without the dole. If a computer costs $200 instead of $400, then more people can save that over a year.

Of course, US officials who have been on the dole and the take for their entire lives find this very scary, as the United States interests are going to be threatened by an educated and technical savvy population. Of course, if the US were not so afraid of an educated and technical savvy population, perhaps we would not have the trade deficit from which we currently suffer.

Read the post. "Venezuelan here." Most educated Venezuelans (including my wife) detest Chavez. It's only the poor that really adore him and he's such a populist politician much like Franklin D. Roosevelt (or so a passerby once described him)

" where personal freedom is gone."It really depends on the end result.For example, there would have been no way to oust foreign influence and weld China beck together without something like Maoism. Processes to build a modern nation from divided countries with backward populations are often bloody. Old structures must be smashed and unity forged by force.In the very short time since 1948, China went from warlordism and anarchy to economic and military powerhouse. Revolutionaries understand this. (I am NOT p

Hmmm...is North Corea somehow related to Chick Corea? And is L. Ron Hubbard worshipped as a deity there? Is their prime export clams? Wait, you meant North Korea! With that little pipsqueak with the Elvis pompadour and platform shoes! And no lights on at night! Ah, now I understand. K thx bai...

While my personal feelings regarding Mr Chavez are mixed, this is a great idea. He's attempting to grow an industry within his country and using open-source software to do it. It's always good to see Linux moving beyond the nerds into the hands of (for lack of a better term) common people.

Chavez is best buds with the dictators and thugs who rule Cuba, China, Zimbabwe, Iran, etc. If your country is a human rights nightmare, an economic backwater, and/or a one-party state, Chavez will speak well of you, while blaming all problems on the USA. Is it any wonder Americans don't like him?

Chavez began hating the USA long before anyone here had ever heard of him. Is it a surprise if there's hatred directed back at him?

They are not centrally-planned economies, not by most standards, at least. They have meddled with the market as all governments are wont to do, but not on the scale of nationalizing entire industries, etc.

Eh? Read up a few things. If you're calling Singapore a planned economy [wikipedia.org], that is rather daring, to say the least. And scandinavians would simply shake their heads about such an assertion. Don't mix up high levels of government expenditure as percent of GDP with the absence of market economy (background [imf.org]).

Chavez is just following the policy of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Sound familiar? [crooksandliars.com]

I don't like either case, but Chavez has less power and fewer options than the USA.

As for central planning, it will never be as efficient as free markets. But consider how the USSR's central planning would have gone if it had Walmart's computing power, data analysis, demand prediction programs, and supplier controls and communication. Walmart does a tremendous job of centrally planning its stores. It has to forec

Whenever you vote for something, there's one thing you should keep in mind: someday people with a different opinion will be in power. Therefore, before you grant powers to a government you may be favorable to, consider that a few years or decades later, those exact same powers may be used against you.

For more information on the context of whats going on in Venezula, check out the docco Chavez - Inside the Coup [imdb.com]. It shows how the oil corporates attempting a coup manipulated the public. This is the people that lost their broadcast license not long ago.

Chavez may seem like a bad man to some, but really is a result of the grass roots organising - aka The Bolivarian Circles [wikipedia.org].

That seems high. I could probably get a machine from Tiger Direct for what Dictator for Life Hugo Chavez claims his Bolivarian machines cost. You could check the prices from Tiger or CDW or Dell or HP as do as well.

"The goal of the project is to jump-start a domestic IT industry and become an IT exporter to the rest of Latin America."

So they're going to put free (as in beer as well as in "RMS-speak") on commodity hardware that they won't be able to manufacture any cheaper than US companies do. It doesn't sound like a big winner to me.

They also have a goal to increasingly manufacture the components they are importing, domestically. Sounds to me like one of the unsung development models (often championed by Jane Jacobs) that has actually worked, where you involve FDI (Foreign Direct Investment), but produce locally, training your citizens in the tacit skills of manufacturing, and slowly taking over from the foreign firm, producing domestic competing firms, with a final goal of international markets. I dunno, but it worked pretty damned

I love the Chavez apologists. At the risk of invoking a law that no doubt everyone on Slashdot is familiar with, I wonder if this will end up being the TCP/IP equivalent of Volksempfänger complete with filters to keep comments from more then 100-150 miles away.

It's amazing what people are willing to forget because someone is a enemy of their enemy. Chavez is rapidly militarizing, is the only leader in the entire world who seems not to have gotten the Communism is dead memo, and is now ruling by fiat.

My favorite Chavez-ism: He set price controls on various food items in order to stop inflation and "protect the poor". Naturally, as any economist could predict, this had no impact on inflation but did create food shortages. How did Chavez respond? He accused people of "hoarding" food and sent his police off to seize whatever food supplies they could find. source [washingtonpost.com]

If Venezuela weren't swimming in oil, its economy would already be in ruins. Unfortunately the oil money is just buying Chavez time to build

And it lead to thousands of sick and dying people, when they tried to team up to make medicine. Let's hope they actually attempt "quality control" this time, something communism has always been awful at.

I am not surprised at the quantity of anti-Chavez invective from the republi-trolls that seem to infest slashdot now. Regurgitating US propaganda as fact.

One or two points.

Venezuela is a Democracy. They have elections every so often so the people get to decide who gets to run the place. They have decided that they prefer Chavez to the alternatives.

Chavez was democratically elected. And re-elected. Something like 60% of the populace want him as leader rather than the traditional oligarchies that used to run the place for their own benefit. They of course hate him for this. Almost all of the media in Venezeula are owned by the wealthy elite.

Chavez is not a communist. He is a socialist. There is a huge difference.His socialist view is that *all* of the people of Venezuela should have affordable healthcare, at very low cost, if not free.His socialist view is that *all* of the people should have low cost/free education.Ditto with affordable decent housing for all.

And he is well on the way to achieving these aims.

His policies are meant to benefit the whole country, and not just the wealthy elite oligarchies.So yes, Washington hates this, and him as a result.Washington is having conniptions with this because I suspect they are frightened that the rest of the world might look at this socialist, benefit the maximum number of the population thing, and think "Hey, maybe there is something in this." Affordable healthcare for all? Affordable Education for all? Affordable Housing for all? Why haven't we got this?This is why they have tried to back a coup to remove him from power, Against the democratically expressed wishes of majority of the country.

So, for trying to raise the standard of living of the population, he is automatically reviled and vilified. All this crap about spyware installed by the government on Linux, anti-Bush screensavers and the like is ignorant spite.

And one commenter compared him to Satan?More than one "hate his guts".I would be interested to know why exactly.

For those with an enquiring mind, there is a good book called "Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope" by Tariq Ali. It is about Chavez in Venezuela, Castro in Cuba and Morales in Bolivia. ISBN 978-1-84467-102-1. Published by Verso 2006. Read it and you may learn something.

Chavez is not a communist. He is a socialist. There is a huge difference.

The difference is a difference in degree - not a difference in quality.
Both systems need to use force to take from productive people and give to people who are not productive. They also need to restrict what people can produce so that they do not compete with the inefficient state provided service.

We also have democratically elected communist regimes in India in 2 states - both of those states (Kerala and WB) are economic bas

Superb post. I was going to write a reply, but I see you've already covered just about everything I was going to mention. The only thing I would add is that it is important to recognize the agenda behind the vilification of any system that is not strictly plutocratic market capitalism:

Socialism CANNOT be allowed to be a successful sociopolitical system because it would represent a threat to the profit-making machinery of plutocratic market capitalism. The uber-wealthy folks LIKE being able to game the system for profit. While America's economy is growing and corproate profits are at record highs, the middle class is evaporating and life for the poor is fast heading into the toilet - crappy healthcare, crappy education, and on and on.

Now if someone ever actually manages to prove that there's a better way to do things, well, it could all turn very ugly for guys like Dubya. They can't vilify countries full of successful white people - like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc - where socialism really works. But a country full of poor brown people is an easy target for their brand of rhetoric.

It seems that in Slashdot many people have some what strange idea on what socialism is and where they think that they are seeing it.

In socialism the people via government own and control the means of production. Communism is not alternative to socialism, but a way to enter socialism via armed struggle. Social democracy is an alternative way to achieve socialism by transforming the state peacefully into socialism step by step. In the world where we are living, there is no country that is practising socialism.

You said that countries like Sweden, Norway and Denmark are socialist, that's dead wrong. The countries you cited are free capitalistic market economies. The only difference in Nordic and usually in European countries is that they have set up safety nets for their citizen: i.e. well-fare, public education and health-care etc.. Having these things doesn't make a country socialist, it makes it a well-fare state.

When we look at south America and especially what Chavez is doing to Venezuela, they are more or less committed on idea of national socialism: using the economy of a country and it's means of production to further national agendas and it's manifested destination. That is wrong and stupid. They are only going to wreck their economies and after they have used their national resources like oil and gas, their economies will crumble down. The only way to achieve prosperity is to invest in infrastructure, means of production and to abilities of citizens. Nordic countries nor Europe weren't build in a decade, the prosperity that we have and that takes care of welfare state is the product of hundreds of years work and investment into infrastructure and means of production.

It actually comes from the concept of personal freedom; the freedom to do as you wish as long as it doesn't harm another. i.e. liberalism, which is ironic because the US have redefined liberal to mean socialist.You see, you cannot have freedom without responsibility, they are the same thing. If you take away someone's responsibilities you are also at the same time taking away their freedom. A socialist state removes the personal responsibility from the individual and at the same time removes those same free

Large hardware makers have consolidated like crazy, been spun off/sold, and/or gone out of business because the margins in computer hardware manufacturing are notoriously thin. Now Venezuela comes in offering computers for 75% (not 60% as Chavez innumerately claims) of the cost of the big manufacturers. What gives?Frankly, they're not really "cheaper" so much as they're just subsidised. If I lived in Venezuela, I'd rather have press freedom, foreign investment, affordable food (http://www.washingtonpost.

This is becaus the United States would rather deal with and give their oil dollars to middle east regimes that support terrorists than to an American socialist state. You see terrorisum is not the big evil, Socalisum is.

Whether you love Chavez or hate him, whether you think our actions in the hemisphere over the last century have been prudent or monstrous, one thing is clear: while Bush is (incompetently) chasing the middle eastern oil, he's letting our control of Central and South America slip away. So, how many of you Neocons still think Dubya is a bold imperial genius?

You are delusional, I'm afraid. These "US and European businesses" you refer to do not exist -- multinational corporations have no national allegiances, they do what is best for their quarterly profit.

Besides which, how is a Chinese corporation operating in Venezuela the same as the Chinese government meddling in the oil supply? Furthermore, since when did the Monroe Doctrine apply to Asian nations? And third, where the hell do Americans get off claiming Venezuelan oil for themselves?

Ahh, but not all commies are yet Linux users. There is still an untapped market of commies that use Windows (Gasp! How can anyone read the "Criticism of Gotha and Erfurt Program" and do that is beyond me!) or OSX - these more popular in the agit-prop subculture of commies, they design posters calling for general strikes in it because they want "colour calibration". Or so they say, still smells like burgeoise behaviour, bloody revisionists.

Microsoft is a North American company bringing money into the U.S. from other countries

Not being from the US, I'm not torn at all. If I have to give money to a foreign economy I would much rather the money goes to a poor but aspiring economy where the work and the economic improvement makes a very significant improvement in the quality of life for a lot of people, than further feeding an economy that is already the largest in the world.

In fact, given the choice I certainly prefer getting stuff or services o

So I am torn on this topic. I love Linux and free open source software and I want M$ to die a fast death, yet I want U.S. exports to remain high.

Eventually, you can only make money by providing a real service. The chips are still Intel, so where there is US excellence, there is US income. There might be more if it were not for M$ proping up Intel at the expense of other US companies like AMD and IBM. Remember DEC and DR? They had some nice export income too. The US might be more competitive at elect

he isn't a dictator.
tell it to the people who used to watch the TV station he shut down.

You mean the TV station that backed the coup that briefly removed the democratically elected Chávez and replaced him with a military dictatorship? They already know what Chávez is and what they themselves are.

Another venezuelan here
For "ending the contract" as the venezuelan government so euphemistically puts it, there had to be a trial for those allegations (supporting the coup, being "in bed with the imperialists!" and other nonsense) and RCTV had to be found guilty. If there was no prosecution, the contract had to be automatically renewed for 20 years. Now, not only such trial never took place but it was based solely on what Chavez accused RCTV of doing during his TV show. On top of tha

it will be till somebody pokes around the prepackage and finds it able to only load approved state software, calls home, etc.

Then they'll be lucky to be running Linux. They can download a clean install from almost anywhere, blank the state software and start over. Download free tools to monitor their network traffic and watch to see if the hardware or BIOS has been borked.

But their plan was foiled by loading OSS on that machine, otherwise they would have gotten away with it. A fortunate oversight, don't you agree?